OF INDUSTRIES. 65 



tages, too many bedsteads and bedclothes in the 

 workmen's dwellings, too many lamps burning 

 in the huts, and too much cloth on the shoulders, 

 not only of those who used to sleep (in 1886) in 

 Trafalgar Square between two newspapers, but 

 even in those households where a silk hat makes 

 a part of the Sunday dress. And nobody will 

 dare to affirm that there is too much food in 

 the homes of those agricultural labourers who 

 earn twelve shillings a week, or of those women 

 who earn from fivepence to sixpence a day in the 

 clothing trade and other small industries which 

 swarm in the outskirts of all great cities. Over- 

 production means merely and simply a want of 

 purchasing powers amidst the workers. And 

 the same want of purchasing powers of the 

 workers was felt everywhere on the Continent 

 during the years 1885-1887. 



After the bad years were over, a sudden 

 revival of international trade took place ; and, 

 as the British exports rose in four years (1886 to 

 1890) by nearly 24 per cent., it began to be said 

 that there was no reason for being alarmed by 

 foreign competition ; that the decline of exports 

 in 1885-1887 was only temporary, and general 

 in Europe ; and that England, now as of old, 

 fully maintained her dominant position in the 

 international trade. It is certainly true that if 

 we consider exclusively the money value of the 



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